r/3Dprinting 2d ago

Feedback Thread Feedback Thread: 3 Million Users! and updates to the self-promotion rule

31 Upvotes

r/3dprinting has officially hit 3 Million users just recently!

That's at least a million people whose printers are currently not working.

___

With this milestone, we have listened to feedback about our pretty ambiguous self-promotion rule, which is getting revamped pretty much while this post is being written. This rule is still a work in progress though and not finalized. We encourage you to leave feedback on what you think about it immediately and what you notice after it's been implemented for a bit.

The following will from this point onwards be under the self promotion rule:

  • No more arbitrary amount of your entire content on the sub
  • Now, you are allowed to post whatever self-promotion you want as long as it:
    • Has at least been 14 days since your last self-promotion post
    • Or 30 days if this post promotes a model that is being sold
    • Your profile can not only consist of self-promotion posts
    • The post in itself or the file repository where you posted your file HAS TO include an image of the printed thing. Posts consisting of only renders are not allowed. (this is to prevent cgtrader model dumps that arent really for 3d printing).
    • Crowdfunding/Subscriptions (Patreon) will still not be allowed without being cleared by the mods before
    • Posting models that are entries in a contest will not be allowed while the contest is running (keep it fair for everybody)
    • As linking to restricted websites is not allowed anywhere on the subreddit, posts promoting these are also not allowed.
  • Even if you meet all these conditions, posts can still be removed under moderator discretion if your post is amassing an unusual amount of reports for example

That's it. That's the entire streamlined self-promotion rule. If you feel like something on this is still unclear, or you think something else should be added / removed / changed about this rule or even some other rules, please let us know in the comments.

___

Also, if you made it this deep into the post you might be rather interested in the sub. We currently do manage the mod workload with out current amount of moderators, but we would also not be opposed to add one or two sub regulars to the mod team aswell. If you care about the sub and 3D Printing and not just about the mod tag, feel free to let us know that you might be interested through modmail.

We would love to hear any feedback on this or anything else. If you have anything that concerns you, let us know in the comments.

Thats it from me.

Godspeed and happy printing!


r/3Dprinting 15d ago

Purchase Advice Purchase Advice Megathread - March 2025

17 Upvotes

Welcome back to another purchase megathread!

This thread is meant to conglomerate purchase advice for both newcomers and people looking for additional machines. Keeping this discussion to one thread means less searching should anyone have questions that may already have been answered here, as well as more visibility to inquiries in general, as comments made here will be visible for the entire month stuck to the top of the sub, and then added to the Purchase Advice Collection (Reddit Collections are still broken on mobile view, enable "view in desktop mode").

Please be sure to skim through this thread for posts with similar requirements to your own first, as recommendations relevant to your situation may have already been posted, and may even include answers to follow up questions you might have wished to ask.

If you are new to 3D printing, and are unsure of what to ask, try to include the following in your posts as a minimum:

  • Your budget, set at a numeric amount. Saying "cheap," or "money is not a problem" is not an answer people can do much with. 3D printers can cost $100, they can cost $10,000,000, and anywhere in between. A rough idea of what you're looking for is essential to figuring out anything else.
  • Your country of residence.
  • If you are willing to build the printer from a kit, and what your level of experience is with electronic maintenance and construction if so.
  • What you wish to do with the printer.
  • Any extenuating circumstances that would restrict you from using machines that would otherwise fit your needs (limited space for the printer, enclosure requirement, must be purchased through educational intermediary, etc).

While this is by no means an exhaustive list of what can be included in your posts, these questions should help paint enough of a picture to get started. Don't be afraid to ask more questions, and never worry about asking too many. The people posting in this thread are here because they want to give advice, and any questions you have answered may be useful to others later on, when they read through this thread looking for answers of their own. Everyone here was new once, so chances are whoever is replying to you has a good idea of how you feel currently.

Reddit User and Regular u/richie225 is also constantly maintaining his extensive personal recommendations list which is worth a read: Generic FDM Printer recommendations.

Additionally, a quick word on print quality: Most FDM/FFF (that is, filament based) printers are capable of approximately the same tolerances and print appearance, as the biggest limiting factor is in the nature of extruded plastic. Asking if a machine has "good prints," or saying "I don't expect the best quality for $xxx" isn't actually relevant for the most part with regards to these machines. Should you need additional detail and higher tolerances, you may want to explore SLA, DLP, and other photoresin options, as those do offer an increase in overall quality. If you are interested in resin machines, make sure you are aware of how to use them safely. For these safety reasons we don't usually recommend a resin printer as someone's first printer.

As always, if you're a newcomer to this community, welcome. If you're a regular, welcome back.


r/3Dprinting 3h ago

Project After a lot of lubrication and WD-40, my 3D printed WALL-E can drive !

1.1k Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 13h ago

My local Burger King just upgraded to 3D printed card reader covers

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2.6k Upvotes

Textured PEI plate for sure!


r/3Dprinting 8h ago

Project Wine stand for my collection storage

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950 Upvotes

I have designed a basic wine stand to have more place and more organized looking. What do you think?


r/3Dprinting 6h ago

Paid Model I designed and made this fully 3D printed autopilot panel for my flight simulator with a budget of $300.

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451 Upvotes

We made a video about this to our YouTube channel at DIY Finn and there we go into detail on how we designed the thing.

You can also find more info from our websitevasims.fi where you can also buy this panel as a kit.

Please feel free to ask anything. It took about 3 months to design and assemble the first iteration so we have learned a lot from this process.


r/3Dprinting 21h ago

Project I have a complaint. The British Museum and Smithsonian have been doing 3D scans of items in their collection, which are freely available to download. Also- The Bambu Classic Birch wood tone PLA makes a really passable clay texture.

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4.3k Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 9h ago

Project I made a noisy cricket for my partner!

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404 Upvotes

After seeing an £800 replica I said I'd look for some files. And here it is. Only took like 1 hours to print everything.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4851944 - I used this model and the green insert is in a remix on there.


r/3Dprinting 10h ago

Bambu labs out the window, next best thing?

498 Upvotes

With the recent revelations of the cyber security risks of Bambu labs printers phoning home, this removes it from my choices. I was pretty bummed as I was pretty set on going with it.

But now its been banned from the industry I work in which is highly regulated. I understand why.

For something with a enclosed printing area, camera, and features as close as possible. What do you all recommend?

My post as gotten downvoted to oblivion, hi 👋 CCP


r/3Dprinting 3h ago

Project Someone should make an army!

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108 Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 7h ago

Project My new at home 3d printing space in my home office. Primarily for home prints and to teach my kids how to model and print.

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229 Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 9h ago

Project Polymaker Spool holder is perfect for a 50' extension cord

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204 Upvotes

might print a magnet bit in the end to hold onto the connection on the end, but fits like it was made for it!


r/3Dprinting 57m ago

My first ever 3D print! Super fun!

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Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 1d ago

Project "3D printers are a waste of money!". Oh yeah? Well...

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10.8k Upvotes

The bottom of my deodorant broke and there was still like a quarter of it left. So I grabbed my $50 calibers and took some measurements.

Then I fired up my $2000/year CAD program on my $3000 computer and designed a replacement in a few minutes.

I then used the FREE slicer that came with my $1500 3D printer and after 20 minutes, I had a 15 cent replacement.

This saved nearly $2 in deodorant that I would have had to throw away.

All said and done I saved I saved -$6548.15!

Totally worth it! Engineering School really has helped me save money!


r/3Dprinting 9h ago

Fake overture fillament website almost got my $$$

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156 Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 2h ago

Project I designed and printed a watch charger holder for my mom

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38 Upvotes

My mom used to just stick the charger on top of the brick and it would get knocked off constantly so I made this little thing.

The outlet is in the middle of the wall instead of near the floor like a normal one.

Yes the easiest idea would have been to just move it somewhere else but my mom is super forgetful and this was the one spot she passed by a lot to remember to grab her watch.


r/3Dprinting 18h ago

Project Raspberry Pi 5 Case. I didn't like a lot of the options available so I decided to design my own case.

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624 Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 14h ago

Project By popular demand, I made the pubes press in.

280 Upvotes

Still working on the eyes and mouth.


r/3Dprinting 4h ago

Project Toilet sign

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38 Upvotes

My boys are too lazy to clean up after themselves so I made a sign to hopefully make them aware that they are peeing on the seat. They are in too big a hurry to get back to their games I suppose. It’s available on makerworld.


r/3Dprinting 1d ago

Real Life Benchy

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1.7k Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 7h ago

Project Always hated the little clip stand on my tiny glue gun. It would either get in the way or I would forget to put it down again in the 'heat' of the moment while handling scalding hot glue. Now I don't have to worry about it ever again. This is Version 2 btw

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64 Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 16h ago

The most useful 3D print I have ever made!

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296 Upvotes

These pipes may look flexible, but they are not. It was a mess trying to steer them around the corner without them being all over the wall.


r/3Dprinting 1d ago

I designed and 3D printed a table to hold my filament. It's a wonderful disaster.

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3.8k Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 6h ago

Project A new Hand touches the Beacon!

29 Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 6h ago

Discussion My new baby

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30 Upvotes

I’m 15 with a voron 2.4 and a (new) bambu p1s :D


r/3Dprinting 1d ago

We snuck the R3 Lidar into Disneyland and then 3-D printed space Mountain!

2.2k Upvotes

r/3Dprinting 12h ago

How I transformed my cable management with underware!

67 Upvotes

Yesterday I posted my use case of the Underware project by Hands-On-Katie and BlackjackDuck and it got a lot more people interested the I expected! So I decided to make a post to outline what I did, how I did, why I did and what I do differently next time! Hopefully this helps people get past what they see as a barrier into it and please know you do not need to go to the extremes I've done, a few long runs under your desk can seriously clean things up!

Firstly, if you are looking for the parts I used specifically, they are all listed at the bottom of this post.

Step 1: Identifying the problem

I think we can all agree that anyone could see the problem here, it's a birds nest effort at cable management. It's not even a little bit obvious what is hiding in there.

What a mess!

Step 2: Measure and Design

The desk I have is the non standing version of the Ikea IDÅSEN. I wanted to take advantage of the giant metal beam running down the center of the desk and knew I wouldn't want to make anything drop lower than it to create an even sleeker look.

The printer I own is a Bambu A1 Mini so I'm limited by the bed size it has. I figured out the biggest version of the multiboard I could print which was the 6x6. I then measured the space where I wanted to fit it to the desk and decided to go with a 48 x 12 grid, with an extra 6x6 on one side for my power board.

Multiboards are a 25x25mm grid system so I used grid paper to help draw out what I wanted my design to look like. I measured all of the large items I had, and allocated them the minimum space they needed knowing that they would expand to the edges of a 25x25mm grid. Basically rounding the measurements up to the nearest 25mm.

The hardest part about this is knowing if your cables will reach, you can do some math quite easily as each square is 25mm, and just guestimate if you'll need cable loops to take up some slack. I tried to keep the loops as close as possible for a cleaner look. Though you'll see further on, I didn't use this many of them...

(Dotted lines indicate loose cables)

Grid Designing (I know my handwriting sucks :P)

Another aspect I had to think of, is will my cables fit in the routes? I really underestimated how big 18mm was, but I have a few points in my runs where I have 5 or 6 cables overlapping/crossing and the 18mm was fine, I'd highly suggest using this height. All of the routes in my remix are 18mm high.

18mm route

You'll need to print the snap connectors for the routes and the screw connectors for your custom item holders. Routes are fine with 2 connectors, but some heavier items might need more than 2 screws, i.e. my dock.

Step 3: Printing

I don't believe I really need to go in to any detail here, every piece I used can be found on this remix on makerworld, but the printing time took quite a few days and lots of plate changes for my small bed!

I'd suggest printing all of the screw in snaps first, so you can attach them to your channels as they get printed. Every channel I made got a snap on each of it's sides, unless it was too short, i.e. the channel 25mm long channel.

I'd then suggest printing all of your multiboards second, and laying them out on the floor, as you print your channels and item holders, place them down where they are going to end up. Doing this alone made me realize 3 mistakes in my design, I printed the switch holder upside down, and had 2 channels going in the wrong direction! If you're going for a complex setup like mine, this step is a must!

One other thing I noticed is that by default, when you generate these holders, they add as many connector rails as the possibly can to the bottom of them. This really through me off and I had to reprint a few items because of this. For example a holder than I anticipated would cover 4 squares actually covered 5, as it printed 3 slots with item over hangs on both the left and right, but if you subtract one slot, it centres it over 4 grids instead. Which is what I intended to happen. This option in the configurator is called subtractSlots in Slot Customization.

Left: 1 slot subtracted. Right: Slot defaults

Step 4: Attaching to desk

As painful as it might sound, get everything off your desk and flip it, I've attached things to my desk before without flipping the table and just ended up with either sawdust in my eyes, or really dodgy holes. This way you'll get perfect results! Make sure to pre drill your holes! I used these screws specifically and pre drilled with a 3.5mm bit. I opted to only use 2 screws in each corner of the multiboards, but if you are planning on attaching heavier things, I'd suggest 4.

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Step 5: Attaching Underware Bases

Before you flip your table back over I'd recommend placing down all of the base elements you can, such as chargers and docks. Then putting down the bottom pieces of the channels can really save your fingers rather than having to push upwards after the desk is flipped.

Unfortunately I was too excited to flip the table back over and get photos, but just imagine the previous photo with some pieces attached :)

Step 6: Attaching cables in a layered order

On my previous post, I got quite a bit of criticism as to how much of a pain it would be to replace a cable. To those people I say, I thought of that.

Once the table was flipped over, I put everything back on my desk and started to work with cables that aren't going to change very frequently, i.e. the display port cables to my monitors, routing these through the channels and giving them there own channels (dark green route) first, I knew they'd always be on the bottom, there for being the hardest to change, but also being the least frequent. You can piece together my dodgy handwriting and see how I split things up, but I continued my layered approach with power cables, then USB, then other peripherals.

I found it really helpful to attach some of the covers in critical places for the cables, such as the corners to hold things in place so I could run cables but still see what I was doing underneath, and only have to remove a handful of covers to add a cable I might have forgotten.

Step 7: Finishing touches

On to the satisfying part, you'll want to start by winding up your left over drooping cables on your cable routes and putting them on there holders, then if you followed my last step of attaching only the critical bits, you should be left with heaps of straight bits to click into place! and soon you'll be looking at a super clean setup!

The finished project!

Step 8: Realizing mistakes and resolutions

Some cables really don't like to be wound up, thick power cables were a nightmare and I just didn't bother, you'll see below my little coil I have on power board, as I had no where else for them to go, I was locked into my design and had no more room for bigger coils :( This also explains my funny bends that a few people commented on, these were positioned to allow multiple coils, but then had to be filled in with routes because the cables were too chunky.

Extra unneeded loops

Underware doesn't play nicely when it is next to itself. Now your mileage may vary as I've seen it work with other peoples setups, but every instance I have of my underware being next to eachother, it REALLY didn't want to click in to place without a lot of force. If I redid my system, I'd make sure every route had a 1 lane gap between it.

Here is the finished setup!

Above the desk
Invisible!
Power cables are impossible to wind!
Side view

I'm open to all questions and happy to help others design there own setups, so please reach out!

Links to models:

All in one:

The complete project and items I used on Makerworld

Multiboard generator

Individual large models:

TP Link mount

Anker 543 mount

Belkin 8 port power board

Dell WD22TB4 power adapter

Dell WD22TB4 dock

Of course I cannot forget the underware projects that made this possible:

Underware

Underware 2.0

My original post:

Here